Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of specific population sections, with regards to economic and work conditions, mental and physical well-being, and context-based factors, emphasizing the need for timely policy measures aimed at counteracting the Italian economic framework’s fragility—which poorly adapts to unexpected circumstances. Identifying the most vulnerable groups is, therefore, essential with a view to carrying out targeted measures. Concerning University, the economic downturn caused by COVID-19 could likely result in a decrease in enrollments to both the first and further years of study, with significant consequences on the future of students and the system as a whole. The class of students is of great interest, as it is made up of individuals differing from each other in many ways. Our investigation is aimed at observing anxiety levels filtering the perception of one’s anxiety state in a highly stressful time such as the pandemic from the usual anxiety levels. This evaluation allows us to evaluate the similarity of individual behaviors during the lockdown period with those from the previous period.
Highlights
The rapid spread of COVID-19 has turned into a global public health crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of specific population sections, with regards to economic and work conditions, mental and physical well-being, and context-based factors, emphasizing the need for timely policy measures aimed at counteracting the Italian economic framework’s fragility—which poorly adapts to unexpected circumstances
Our study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on anxiety among Italian university students located in the South, Centre, and North of Italy, during the lockdown
Summary
The rapid spread of COVID-19 has turned into a global public health crisis. The COVID19 pandemic produced negative psychological problems other than mortality, including increased anxiety (see Fardin, 2020 for an overview of this strand of literature). According to the main literature (see Salari et al, 2020 for an overview), greater levels of anxiety, depression, and stress commonly affect people with higher levels of education and this correlation makes university students a relevant sample to evaluate the impact of the current pandemic on anxiety levels. Several analyses applied to university students showed higher rates of anxiety/depression and financial instability due to the pandemic all over the world (e.g., Esteves et al, 2021; Garvey et al, 2021; Jones et al, 2021) In this respect, Jones et al (2021), studying the City University of New York, underlined that more than half of the interviewed students (54.5%) reported relevant levels of anxiety/depression and an increased need for mental health services due to the pandemic. We administered the STAI-Y test to university students to separate state anxiety (in our case, the one concerning the lockdown period) and trait anxiety (the level of anxiety as a personal characteristic). The evaluation of structural breaks in the temporal dynamics of the analyzed phenomena and the analysis of the unobserved aspects of personality and well-being traits allow us to evaluate whether individual behaviors during the lockdown period have changed compared to the habitual ones
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